French Cast-on

A woman visiting our SnB group last week mentioned trying to do a French Cast-on. I must admit that she had me perplexed until we talked a bit, and it was just a fancy way of saying tubular cast-on, although I do prefer the name French Cast-on, and may have to use it from now on. This got me to googling it when I got home. Nothing new, except that I found this video by Eunny Jang:

Ignore the fact that her producers did not have her use 2 highly contrasting yarns so that it would be evident as to what she was doing. Normally I make a tubular cast on starting with a crochet chain where I pick up the requisite number of stitches needed in each of the bumps on the chain. I have shown that in the past in this post.

What intrigued me about Eunny’s technique was that I could actually cast on 1/2 + 1 the final number of stitches needed in a contrasting color and just knit, (use a needle 1-2 sizes larger than you will end up knitting with. Here I used a size 3 don). I wanted to end up with 48 sts for my mittens, so I cast on up 25 + 1 = 25sts. I am only using 4 needles here, the stitches on 3, as there are so few to work with. Join in a circle (with the forever mentioned note: be careful not to twist your stitches), and knit 3-4 rows.

knit for couple of rows, then start with your garment color and knit 3-4 rows still using the larger needles.

Using the needle size that you will be knitting the socks with: *Knit the first stitch. For the second stitch, reach over the top of the knitting into the cast-on edge, and pick up the first “purl bump” of your sock yarn (not the contrasting color yarn that you cast on with), this is where using a clearly contrasting color such as I did really helps. Put it onto the left hand needle and purl that stitch.**

Repeat from * to **, ending with a K1. You will now have your desired number of stitches plus one extra on your finished needle size, the first and last stitches will be knit stitches.

Do 2-3 rows of 1×1 ribbing. On the first row knit the first and last stitch together. The stitch count will now match your pattern requirements. I am doing a twisted 1×1 rib here, using 5 size #1 dpn’s.

After you have knit at least 3-4 rows, or anytime in the pattern progress that you feel like, it will be time to pull out the contrasting cast on yarn.

You can clearly see here how the coast on yarn (purple) is now pulled underneath the fabric.

It always helps to have a pair of Eiffel Tower scissors to trim with.

Just cut a row or 2 into the cast on contrast yarn. Cut off the bottom cast on row(s).

Pull out all of the cast on yarn

And Voila! you have a beautiful finished edge that looks like the knitting just rolls over on itself.

It is very stretchy, almost feels like the edge has elastic in it.

The key to making this work is to do the set up rows where you have 1/2 the number of stitches, in a larger size needle. Otherwise it will be very hard to pick up and not have the stretch that you are looking for.

Seems awesome. Results I’d like to have, but honestly could not wrap my head around this. Perhaps 4:30 AM and NOT watching the video was to my disadvantage. I’ll comeback when brain cells want to learn a new knitting technique. 😉

Please come back soon! Watch the video, then try a sample with very different colors so that you can clearly see the bumps. I think it will make sense when you are awake and can focus. Just do a practice swatch first. Let me know how it comes out.

You can cast on using this method for anything that has ribbing. 2×2 ribbing is a bit more fiddly, I will talk about that at a later date. I have used it on knitting that is not in a round. See this post where the bottom was knit back and forth prior to joining in a round. Or this one where I describe it in more detail, although using the crochet chain for the cast on.